A recent European Council summit in Brussels was meant to articulate a united policy on the burgeoning refugees and migrant crisis. Instead, it served to highlight the bitter divisions among various European countries.

Considering the gravity of the matter, Europe’s self-serving policies are set to worsen an already tragic situation.

True, several European leaders, including Italy’s Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte, went home to speak triumphantly of a ‘great victory’, achieved through a supposedly united European position.

Italy’s Interior Minister, Matteo Salvini, used more derogatory terms in explaining his country’s new policy on refugees and migrants.

“They will only see Italy on a postcard”, he said, referring to refugees who have been arriving in Italy with the help of humanitarian rescue boats.

Crisis and opportunity are, as the ancient Chinese philosophers knew, opposite sides of the same koan. It is, they say, the attitude governing our reaction to the matter at hand ultimately determining the path we choose and outcomes that follow.

By those calculations, right now we are at a very opportune moment in history; a moment that will determine not just what kind of future we'll have, but if there is to be a future at all.

It seems our species' irresistible cleverness has at last met the immovable environmental reality of existence within the finite context of living on a small orb in space, and how we deal with this imminent crisis/opportunity is the question of the age.

Joel Gregory Hayes is scientific technician and adventurer currently embarked on a journey to create and prove a new solar charged Electric Vehicle, or SEV. It is his and his partners' plan to engineer and pilot their vehicle between the north tip and southern reaches of the Americas.

Joel Gregory Hayes in the first half.

And; as the small informs the large, so too the way we live our little lives can have great effects on the broader World. Here in our green and pleasant Victoria we are seeing a drastic diminishment of not only what little remains of the wild spaces once surrounding us, but the parks, urban forest, and rural spaces closer to home too; all sacrificed for industry, and a real estate business booming out of control.

Nowhere is the loss more evident than in Saanich, a jurisdiction blessed with all these attributes, and where the latest facing the developer's axe is the as yet unrecognized, Kings Road Park.

Nathalie Chambers is an organic farmer, business owner, progressive community leader, fundraiser, project manager, public speaker on biodiversity and local food security, author of the book, 'Saving Farmland: The Fight for Real Food,' and past candidate for Saanich council.

Nathalie Chambers and the fight of our lives; saving Saanich, one green space at a time in the second half.

And; Victoria-based activist and CFUV Radio broadcaster at-large, Janine Bandcroft will be here at the bottom of the hour with the Left Coast Events Bulletin of some of the good things to be gotten up to in around our town in the coming week. But first, Joel Gregory Hayes and SEV for the Americas.

The agreement came as a result of recent negotiations between Kurdish and Syrian government officials in both Damascus and Qamishli.

For over a year, much of northeastern Syria has found itself under de facto occupation by the United States and its military proxy, the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). The occupied territory, accounting for nearly a third of Syria’s total landmass and including large portions of the al-Hasakah, al-Raqqa and Deir Ez-Zor regions, has largely been overseen by the SDF, an umbrella group of militias dominated by the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG), which allied with the U.S. early in the conflict.

While the SDF has seemingly had complete control of the occupied territory — which boasts most of Syria’s oil, gas, freshwater and agricultural resources — it seems that increased local resistance to the SDF’s control of the region, as well as the U.S.’ failure to protect its allies elsewhere in Syria, has now pushed the YPG to reconsider its alliance with the United States and instead consider allying with the Syrian government, led by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

With due respect to Mr. Dylan, sometimes you do need a weatherman to see which way the wind blows; or at least a climatologist to confirm, it ain't you, babe, the climes they really are a-changin'. And if climate change is a train, it's not coming slow or fast, but is already in the station!

'Metamorphosis' is the newly released documentary film by collaborators Velcrow Ripper and Nova Ami. Innovative and artistic, beautiful and terrifying, the film navigates the current of climate change as it ebbs and flows, creating new realities across the planet.

Metamorphosis opens across Canada this month, and its Victoria debut is at UVic's Cinecenta theatre this Sunday and Monday, June 24th and 25th.

Metamorphosis opens across Canada this month, and its Victoria debut is at UVic's Cinecenta theatre this Sunday and Monday, June 24th and 25th.

Metamorphosis opens across Canada this month, and its Victoria debut is at UVic's Cinecenta theatre this Sunday and Monday, June 24th and 25th.

Nova Ami and Velcrow Ripper in the first half.

And; even as immigration policies create a political furore in the United States, nightly newscasts rarely explore the roots of the Central American refugee crisis. Whether in Honduras, El Salvador, or Guatemala, the situation is so dire people are willing to risk everything; their lives, and their children's lives, to escape.

Wendy Mendez and the persistent struggle for justice in Guatemala in the second half.

And; Victoria-based activist and CFUV Radio broadcaster at-large, Janine Bandcroft will be here at the bottom of the hour with the Left Coast Events Bulletin of some of the good things to get up to in and around our town in the coming week. But first, Velcrow Ripper and Nova Ami confronting Metamorphosis.

The persecution of Julian Assange must end. Or it will end in tragedy.

The Australian government and prime minister Malcolm Turnbull have an historic opportunity to decide which it will be.

They can remain silent, for which history will be unforgiving. Or they can act in the interests of justice and humanity and bring this remarkable Australian citizen home.

Assange does not ask for special treatment. The government has clear diplomatic and moral obligations to protect Australian citizens abroad from gross injustice: in Julian’s case, from a gross miscarriage of justice and the extreme danger that await him should he walk out of the Ecuadorean embassy in London unprotected.

We know from the Chelsea Manning case what he can expect if a US extradition warrant is successful — a United Nations Special Rapporteur called it torture.

O! Canada, what have you done NOW? Apparently, the Make America Great Again crowd's unhappy and up and declared war on the Great White North. Incredibly, the fully prostrate boot-licking of Canada's immaculately coiffured Justin Trudeau hasn't proven enough to spare us the wrath of the MAGA Khan!!!

It was left for Trump economic acolytes Larry Kudlow and Peter Navarro to shovel the load the leader left in the bilateral trade commode upon his allies' heads, and across America's myriad Sunday political talk shows.

The strain of the effort apparently triggering a "very mild heart attack" in the former, and a brain fart from the latter that ripped across the mediasphere as a miasmic and unprecedented damnation to Hell's foul and sulphured core for our Prime Minister.

John Helmer is a long-time, Moscow-based journalist, author, and essayist whose website, Dances with Bears is the only Russian-based news bureau “independent of single national or commercial ties.” He’s also a former political science professor who’s served as advisor to governments on three continents, and regularly lectures on Russian topics. Helmer’s book titles include: ‘Uncovering Russia,’ ‘Urbanman: The Psychology of Urban Survival,’ ‘Bringing the War Home: The American Soldier in Vietnam and After,’ and ‘Drugs and Minority Oppression’, among others.

And; last month, the Dutch Joint Investigation Team tasked to look into the MH17 disaster came down with an opinion of how the Malaysian airliner came to be shot down over Ukraine in 2014, and who it believes is responsible.

The JIT report unsurprisingly concludes Russia is the culprit, as it argued from the beginning, but is there another possibility? The impartiality of the panel in charge of the nearly four years-long probe has been questioned, with criticism coming mainly from Russia and the separatists of Eastern Ukraine who have fought a bitter war against the NATO-sponsored coup regime in Kyiv.

Kees van der Pijl is emeritus professor of international relations at the University of Sussex and Fellow of the Centre for Global Political Economy. The Dutch political scientist is known for his critical approach to global political economy as found in his trilogy on Modes of Foreign Relations and Political Economy. His other works include; 'Global Rivalries from the Cold War to Iraq', 'Transnational Classes and International Relations', and 'The Making of an Atlantic Ruling Class'. Pijl's also known as one of the World's foremost authorities on the MH17 crash, and the fate of his book dealing with the crash, due out later this month, is now in question.

Kees van der Pijl and getting to the truth of MH17 in the second half.

And, Victoria-based activist and CFUV Radio broadcaster, Janine Bandcroft will be here at the bottom of the hour with the Left Coast Events Bulletin of some of the good things to get up to in and around our town in the coming week. But first, John Helmer and a really very sh*tty week for Justin Trudeau and Canada/US trade relations.

Moscow - The British state broadcasting authority BBC reported on Saturday morning that people who shit in public places are suffering from several different pathologies.

That was before Saturday afternoon, followed by all day Sunday, when US President Donald Trump (lead image, left), his national security advisor John Bolton, his economic advisor Lawrence Kudlow, and his trade advisor Peter Navarro coordinated their movements to crap publicly on Canada’s Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau.

“They look at me like I’m absolutely mad. And I say, if it’s soft, then it’s somebody who’s anxious, so you get a kid who goes and craps on the bed. And if it’s really hard stool then it’s an indication of somebody who’s angry and bitter about what he’s doing.”

Prime Minister Trudeau has enjoined the Great Canadian Petroleum War. Announcing the purchase, and promise of completion, of the contentious Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain Extension pipeline project, the federal government effectively sided-up with Alberta's "blue-eyed sheiks" and their allies in the transnational oil trade against the province of British Columbia, Canada's gateway to the Pacific, and the entirety of the World's environmental community.

But, even before Justin "Crudeau" made his Faustian bargain, federal agencies were already deployed at the service of the now outgoing Texans, arresting scores of citizens standing in the way of its pipeline's progress using "injunctions" granted by BC's own judiciary.

Betty Krawczyk knows more than most about being arrested. The activist, essayist, Green and Work Less Party candidate, and author renowned in BC as the "Environmental Grandmother", has proven sand in the machine of social injustice and ecological destruction for more than fifty years.

From the front lines of the anti-segregation movement in her native Louisiana and resisting America's war against Vietnam, to the forests of Clayoquot Sound and highway expansion through Eagleridge Bluffs, Betty has stood defiant in the face of bad laws and the systems perpetuating them.

Her book titles include: 'Clayoquot: The Sound of My Heart', 'Lock Me Up Or Let Me Go: The Protests, Arrest and Trial of an Environmental Activist', 'Open Living Confidential: From Inside the Joint.', 'This Dangerous Place: My Journey Between the Passions of the Living and the Dead', and 'Betty, Blue Belle and Bitch', and she blogs from her site, Betty's Early Edition.Blogspot.com

Betty Krawczyk in the first half.

And; last week Mariano Rajoy, Spain's controversial, and confrontational, Prime Minister was unceremoniously drubbed from office in a vote of no confidence. The leader of the People's Party had taken a hard line against separatists in Catalonia, but corruption, more than Rajoy's ham-handed response to the Catalan constitutional crisis, is responsible for his sudden and dramatic fall from grace.

Dr. Pablo Ouziel is a Post-Doctoral fellow at UVic whose project in progress is, ‘Towards Democratic Responses to the Crisis of Democracy in Spain: Forms of Participatory and Representative Civic Engagement.’

Pablo Ouziel and an upside down Spain in the second segment.

And; Victoria greentrepreneur and horticulturalist extraordinaire, Christina Nikolic will be here at the bottom of the hour with the Left Coast Events Bulletin of some of the good things to get up to in and around our town in the coming week. But first, Betty Krawczyk and girding our legal loins for B.C.'s Great Pipeline War.

Venezuelans returned President Nicolás Maduro to power May 20th in an election that, according to international observors, went off without a hitch.

The incumbent political heir to the late Hugo Chávez won decisively, garnering more than two-thirds of the popular vote; his next closest rival, former Chavista Henri Falcón, managing just less than 2 million votes, or about 21 per cent.

Despite the landslide victory and endorsement of the internationals, the United States and European Union still find fault with the electoral system former American president, Jimmy Carter has called “the best in the world.”

The self-declared world champions of democracy called Maduro a "dictator" before the poll, vowing they would not recognize his legitimacy, and now that he's won, say they will make good on promises made to ratchet up already-crippling economic sanctions; a collective punishment for the people's temerity in returning a Bolivarian government.

And; it's a tale Dickens would not have told better: Two countries who could not be geographically nearer, and yet whose leadership are philosophically light years apart. Colombia held presidential elections in May too, but unlike neighbour Venezuela, Colombia has been captured by a ruling oligarchy who ruthlessly serve the same transnational interests currently marauding the World.

And; Victoria-based activist and CFUV Radio broadcaster-at large, Janine Bandcroft will be here at the bottom of the hour with the Left Coast Events Bulletin of some of the good things to get up to in and around our city in the coming week. But first, Alan MacLeod and first the verdict, then the vote: Writing Off Democracy in Venezuela.

The latest report by a Dutch-led investigation into the downing of a Malaysian airliner in 2014 casting blame on Russia for the disaster follows the same reprehensible flouting of due process as the Skripal poison affair.

No credible evidence is ever presented. The charges leveled against Russia largely rely on assertion and innuendo. And despite the grave implications for the accused, Russia is not permitted to access the investigation file independently to form an adequate defense against the claims.

This is far from the standard of due legal process. Ironically, by Western governments that claim to be paragons of law and jurisprudence.

It is more akin to an inquisition where guilt is presumed from the outset, and where the prosecution is tilted heavily in favor of the accusers.

When the Saudi Crown Prince gave an interview to the Washington Post, declaring that it was actually the West that encouraged his country to spread Wahhabism to all corners of the world, there was a long silence in almost all the mass media outlets in the West, but also in countries such as Egypt and Indonesia.

Those who read the statement, expected a determined rebuke from Riyadh. It did not come. The sky did not fall. Lightning did not strike the Prince or the Post.

Clearly, not all that the Crown Prince declared appeared on the pages of the Washington Post, but what actually did, would be enough to bring down entire regimes in such places like Indonesia, Malaysia or Brunei.

Or at least it would be enough under ‘normal circumstances’.

That is, if the population there was not already hopelessly and thoroughly indoctrinated and programed, and if the rulers in those countries did not subscribe to, or tolerate, the most aggressive, chauvinistic and ritualistic (as opposed to the intellectual or spiritual) form of the religion.

Reading between the lines, the Saudi Prince suggested that it was actually the West which, while fighting an ‘ideological war’ against the Soviet Union and other socialist countries, handpicked Islam and its ultra-orthodox and radical wing – Wahhabism – as an ally in destroying almost all the progressive, anti-imperialist and egalitarian aspirations in the countries with a Muslim majority.

He points out that the two Koreas are moving the process forward and that Pyongyang believes “complete denuclearization” of the Peninsula includes the US forces in the region aiming nuclear weapons at it.